Blood of Liscor: Book 8, page 11
part #8 of Wandering Inn Series
“No.”
Redscar growled. Pyrite glared at him. After a second, Pyrite nodded.
“Put sentries back. Closer. Split riders. Ready to reinforce any moment.”
He held Redscar’s gaze until the other Goblin nodded. Pyrite was second in charge. With Rags unconscious, he led. But neither Goblins spoke what both knew. The Humans would be back, sentries or not.
——
They had to leave the forest. Pyrite marched the tribe into the hilly plains, watching the sun setting and searching for a spot, any spot where they could put their backs against a wall. He found nothing. He marched the tribe on until nightfall, watching the hills grow closer in the distance. Maybe if they dug ditches? Or camped on the hills?
They never made it that far. Pyrite noticed only when he had to ask why the tribe was lagging behind twice. He strode back and saw the Goblins at the back were gasping for air.
“Can’t breathe, Pyrite.”
Quietstab pointed to a Goblin who was trying to inhale. His lungs were making a terrible rasping sound. Pyrite stared at the Goblin in dismay.
“Bad?”
“Can’t fight. Can’t run. Can’t see. Some. Got rest. Or potion.”
They didn’t have enough potions. And there were hundreds, no, thousands of Goblins who’d inhaled the poisonous gas. Maybe a third of the tribe! Pyrite turned to Poisonbite, who was making the same horrible sound.
“How long heal?”
She gasped for air. Her eyes were weeping, and she was keeping them closed. She had to try twice before she gestured weakly with her claws. Two claws. Four. She shook them weakly.
Two days or four days. And then—a pause. The fingers clenched slightly. Or two weeks. Pyrite looked at Quietstab. He checked the landscape. Open ground. They should have stayed in the forest. Rags would have stayed. Pyrite had no choice now, though. He pointed.
“Make camp! Get Redscar and others!”
The council of war was brief. Pyrite gathered Redscar, Noears, Quietstab, and any of the Hobs who knew how to fight. He divided them up and posted them around the camp. The trouble was that with so many wounded Goblins, it was impossible to encircle the entire camp and not be spread too thin. Pyrite tried to figure out if they could construct defenses. Ditches? He looked at the exhausted Goblins who hadn’t slept since the day before yesterday and shook his head.
Pyrite ordered the Goblin warriors able to fight to sleep in shifts until the attack came. He kept torches lit and burnt as much fuel as he dared. Because the Humans would surely come again. When they did, it was in darkness.
“Horses!”
This time, the scream came near Pyrite’s position. He pushed himself up, grabbed his battleaxe, and ran. He saw horses flashing in the chaos and more shooting arrows behind. He roared, cut down a Human on horseback, saw another dragged off his horse, and watched the rest run. They were good at running! If the Redfangs could follow—
No. Too risky! Pyrite cursed as he watched the Humans leave.
This time, the attack was bloody on both sides. The Humans pulled back after a single charge, leaving behind two dozen dead or wounded. But they’d cut down far too many Goblins. They’d attacked where there were no pikes or crossbows ready. How? Pyrite had no idea. The sentries had been hit first, but they had been alive right until the attack, and the surviving warriors swore they hadn’t so much as seen a Human. Did they have a high-level [Scout]? Some kind of invisibility spell? A scrying spell?
They weren’t even that high-level. Pyrite whirled as he heard a howl. He saw Redfang riders streaming past him and saw a Goblin shouting and pointing after the Humans fleeing into the darkness.
“Redfangs! Follow!”
“Stop.”
Redscar roared as he tried to ride past Pyrite. The Hob charged at him, forcing the Carn Wolf to halt its dash. Pyrite tore Redscar from the saddle and felt two things happen at once. A painful, familiar cold sting in his right arm and a pair of jaws clamping over his hand. Redscar shoved his sword into Pyrite’s arm as his Carn Wolf bit. Pyrite made a fist and forced the wolf’s jaws open.
“Release!”
Redscar snapped, and his Carn Wolf let go. The Goblin kept his blade pressed into Pyrite’s arm, though. Pyrite roared at him in frustration. Redscar roared back. Around them, the Flooded Waters tribe froze, watching the two Goblins in fear. Only then did Pyrite realize what was happening. He was fighting with Redscar! What was the point? He let go of the smaller Goblin slowly and felt the freezing blade’s tip withdraw from his arm.
The two Goblins stared at each other, breathing hard. At last, Pyrite jerked his head.
“Sixty riders. A hundred warriors. No you.”
“Yes.”
Redscar sheathed his blade and called. Instantly, sixty of his Redfang warriors charged into the darkness. Pyrite turned.
“Pikes and crossbows! Twenty Hobs!”
Goblin warriors raced forwards at his command. Pyrite pointed, and they followed the Redfang warriors. The mounted Goblins were already racing across the plains. They rode after the Humans, howling with rage. Sixty mounted elites and a hundred Goblins on foot, enough to tear apart a force twice their size and harry the riders before retreating in turn.
Pyrite felt the blood running down his arm and rubbed at the wound. Redscar eyed the frozen skin and blood, but Pyrite didn’t reach for a potion. He pointed back to the camp.
“Reform defenses. Humans might attack. Other side.”
Redscar nodded. He whistled, and his Redfang warriors followed him back into camp. Pyrite trudged back to his sleeping spot, but he was awake now. He waited as the Goblins who’d been sleeping tried to get some rest. But no one could. They were all listening as hard as they could. They’d been hit by what, a hundred and forty riders? They’d sent more than that after them.
Surely they’d catch their enemy. If they were outnumbered, they’d retreat. Redscar would race to their aid the instant they heard anything. Pyrite would let him. If they could bloody the Humans, force them to defend…the instant they heard anything, Pyrite would move. He’d defend from the other side because of course that was when the Humans would attack. He waited, listening. Waited, waited…
Three minutes passed, then ten. Then half an hour. The Goblins of the Flooded Waters tribe waited. They listened for howling, stragglers—anything. They heard nothing. Pyrite thought he heard a distant war horn—once. Then nothing. After that, Redscar did not try to follow the Humans, though the camp was attacked once more that night. Always with perfect accuracy, always in the weakest point, the flawed sections of the camp’s defenses that Pyrite himself hadn’t spotted.
——
We’re winning each encounter. They’re moving each day, but they haven’t sent any more patrols. Heading towards a city—Lancrel. Orders to keep pursuing?
I tap my fingers together. I don’t have to hear Wiskeria’s reports to know what’s happening. My mind is with her mobile attack force almost all the time. With the Goblins too. I can tell how many have fallen. Hundreds from the raiding. But not enough. There are still thousands, for all they’re still poisoned.
“Your Majesty?”
Nesor’s face isn’t that pale today. He’s gotten used to sending and receiving [Message] spells, and he’s faster and has stopped stuttering as much. I turn to Lady Rie.
“Lancrel. Where is it on the map?”
“Here, Your Majesty.”
She finds me the place on the map instantly. I touch the spot and try to line it up in my head. Yes, the Goblins are headed that way. Aimlessly, it looks like.
“That’s not one of our cities, is it, Rie?”
“No, Your Majesty. Lancrel has refused all messengers and did not reply to your levy. We have apprised them of the Goblin threat, but they declined to send aid. Their walls and gates are thick; I believe they think they’re well-defended.”
“Especially with Wiskeria harrying the Goblins.”
I appraise Lancrel in my mind. A small city. It might hold as many as ten thousand people at most. I don’t bother to count.
“Ten thousand is a small number? They could outnumber Riverfarm three times over.”
“Emperor?”
“Nothing. Lancrel outnumbers the Goblins, and their walls are…probably six meters? How much is that in feet? Twenty? I doubt the Goblins will head towards it. Nesor, tell Wiskeria to keep raiding.”
“Yes, sire.”
I sense Rie standing by my side. I focus my attention on another group moving towards them.
“Nesor. Tell Wiskeria her first group of reinforcements is headed her away. Two kilom—I mean, one mile and a bit south of her. Tell her to find them. They have…some horse, but mainly [Archers] and [Warriors].”
“Yes, sire!”
“They’ll be in position by evening.”
I hear Rie fumble with some figures. She’s changing the map in front of me to reflect what I’m describing. I nod.
“Wiskeria can keep harrying them, but the infantry can’t launch rapid attacks. She can set up a trap and commit all of her mounted soldiers to attacking. No full assaults. The main army will finish them.”
I can sense Durene marching with the bulk of the levied soldiers. [Soldiers] marching in ranks, levied from multiple cities. More cavalry, archers, thousands of them. I add the numbers up again. They’ll outnumber the Goblin army. Barely. Barely, but it’s enough if it’s Goblins. We did it last time. But Durene’s marching, and I’m stuck here. I grit my teeth.
“Harry them, Nesor. Tell Wiskeria to harry them. They’ve shifted almost all their crossbows to their west side. Almost undefended towards east, about a hundred paces north of where Beniar hit them two hours ago. I count two groups of pikes spaced out ten meters…scheiße. I mean, thirty feet apart. Tell Beniar that if he approaches northeast, he can slip past them. There are five sentries. If he sends a group of ten, he could take them out and loose some arrows—”
——
Sleep. Attack. Wake. Attack. The next day was filled with marching and sporadic, deadly raids by the Humans. Always in bad spots. Never in any of the traps. Hidden Goblins lying down with crossbows, Goblins pretending to be napping, Noears hiding in a tent, none of it worked. The Humans knew exactly what Pyrite was doing. Somehow. They’d actually aimed at Noears when he’d been in hiding. They could tell he was a [Mage], where he’d hidden—
How? Noears had suggested magic, but that was too convenient. Redscar was of the opinion some kind of fantastic [Hunter] or [Scout] was spying on them from some incredible distance. It wasn’t anyone nearby. In desperation, Pyrite had sent out the Redfang warriors en masse, hunting for a Human spy. They’d found nothing. No Human [Scouts] for ten miles in any direction. They were sure. So it was something else.
Pyrite didn’t know what, exactly. But he’d come to one definitive conclusion.
“They know where we are. Always.”
“How?”
Quietstab looked around as if the Humans could see them. Pyrite shrugged.
“Don’t know. But can see. Can’t follow.”
“Trap?”
“Trap.”
If the enemy knew exactly where you were and what you were doing at all times, sending out a force to attack them meant they would be surrounded and killed. The only safety was in overwhelming numbers. The Humans were still outnumbered by the Goblins. That was what Pyrite took comfort in. For all of five hours. Then he heard the frantic horns blowing and heard a scream.
“Humans coming!”
Another raid! Pyrite grabbed his battleaxe. He ran towards the shouting and froze. He could see the riders loosing arrows and charging again, but just as quickly he was intercepted by Redscar himself. The Goblin was sweating. He pointed southwest.
“Human army approaching!”
“Humans here!”
Pyrite pointed towards the fighting ahead. Redscar shook his head.
“Big army. Big army.”
An army? Pyrite looked up at Redscar, his heart beating even faster.
“How many?”
“Thousands. Days away. Sent [Scouts]. One survived.”
For a second, the Hob’s ears rang. He looked up. Redscar was grim as he shifted his grip on his sword. Pyrite looked around in desperation. Southwest? Redscar had sent—
No, no time for arguing. Pyrite knew now. He had to move! Keep ahead of the army! Half the tribe still couldn’t breathe. Rags was still unconscious, being carried, her face deathly pale. They had to move.
But the Humans on horses—Pyrite heard more screaming and looked up. There. He saw two of the Humans. One, the Human all in armor who led the raiding. The other he’d spotted. A Human woman with a pointed hat. A spellcaster throwing fire. They were tearing up the Goblins in front of him. No one else could reinforce them! If they did, the Humans would just attack the unguarded spots. Pyrite roared. He pointed at Redscar.
“Guard rear! Quietstab, follow!”
He charged towards the gap in his lines. Goblins surged to follow him, gasping, wounded. They were so tired. They just needed a chance to rest. Two more days. They were breathing better. But the poison—
She was the one behind it. Pointed hat. [Witch]. Pyrite was sure of it. He roared as he charged past Goblins, cutting down a Human on horseback. Blood splashed his chest, and Pyrite howled. If it were this, they could win! If it were a fight, the tribe had Hobs, had warriors, had strategy! But they were hurt! They weren’t able to use their strength! Their Chieftain was asleep.
But she would wake up. Pyrite felt a Human slice his back, but it was a shallow cut. He spun and saw Quietstab hamstring the horse. Rider and horse went down, and Pyrite heard the Humans shouting.
“Retreat! Let the archers cut them down!”
Flee. The Human in armor was too far away. Pyrite saw the [Archers] on horses loosing another volley. They had to be chased off. Goblins with crossbows were coming. They just had to buy time.
Strong. This tribe was strong. Pyrite looked around and saw Goblins fighting, coughing, some blind, others exhausted. They just had to rest. Everything would be alright when Rags woke up. If it were a fight, a proper fight—
He had to hold on. Pyrite charged at the Humans loosing arrows, preventing the Goblins from organizing their ranks. Give them a target. Pyrite shouted as he ran. The arrows flew past them. One struck his shoulder as Pyrite covered his face. All he had to do was hold on. Another struck his stomach, and another. Something struck his shoulder and burned. Pyrite screamed and kept running.
Believe. All he had to do was—five arrows struck Pyrite’s chest, and he slowed. His blood spattered the ground.
Like tears.
——
When the waters rose, the Flooded Waters tribe ate well. It was dangerous, of course, but Rags remembered the rain with fondness. Goblins loved fish. They could hunt fish easily so long as they watched out for predators. All you had to do was find a big school of fish and surround it.
It didn’t matter if they were fast or small. When there were so many, you could attack them from every side, find the stragglers, the slow ones. And then you took them. If you were quick enough, you could have an armful of fish and your belly would be full. If they couldn’t fight back, it was so easy. All you had to do was surround them with some other members of the tribe and then you could eat and eat. Rags had never known what it was like to be a fish.
And then she opened her eyes and the fish were Goblins.
The world swam in front of Rags’ vision. She looked up and saw a blank piece of canvas stretched over her head. A tent? No—she felt rough wood under her back and sat up. She realized she wasn’t in a tent. She was in a wagon.
Someone was crying. It was a high-pitched sound. An unfamiliar sound. Rags hadn’t heard crying in…it wasn’t a Goblin thing to do. But someone was crying, and it was a Goblin who wept. Rags was sure of it.
She sat up and felt at the canvas covering the wagon and her. Only, halfway up, Rags was seized by a horrible coughing fit. She coughed, and pain coursed through her body. Her lungs were on fire! And her eyes burned. She scratched weakly at the canvas and heard a gasp. Someone wrestled with the covering and then there was light.
Rags sat up slowly, her eyes watering, coughing, and saw a hand offer something to her. Blindly, she reached out and drank. It wasn’t a healing potion, but the tepid, stale water did the same job. She stopped coughing and looked into the eyes of a small Goblin. A child.
To be fair, Rags was a small Goblin. This one was a proper child, not an adult even by Goblin standards. She stared at Rags, and she noticed the child had redder eyes than usual. She’d been crying.
“Stop that.”
Rags growled at the child and coughed. The small Goblin scampered back as Rags got up. Her body ached. Her chest felt terribly, terribly weak where she’d been cut. But she was alive. And she felt it. Her tribe needed her. So Rags rose. She stood up in the wagon and gasped. Coughed. But then stood tall.
Like nibbling fish. Like Goblins slowly tearing apart a school of fish. Like slow death, like a thousand stinging ants. Like blood dripping from a wound.
She felt her tribe’s anguish, even if she didn’t know why. Rags took a step, stumbled. A pair of hands steadied her. She looked at the small Goblin. Had she been crying because Rags was unconscious? No—it was more. Death. Rags could remember that.
“Let go.”
She felt the hands retreat and took another step. And another. Rags made her way over to the wagon’s edge and looked around. She could hear…silence. A lack of noise where noise should be. The tribe had stopped. There should be working Goblins, chattering, movement. And she shouldn’t have been covered in a wagon. This was bad. Rags made to leap off the wagon’s back and paused. She looked back at the child and saw two huge eyes staring back at her. Someone had to tell her.
“Crying is waste of water.”
The Goblin child stared at Rags and shrank slightly. The Chieftain of the Flooded Waters tribe held her gaze and then smiled briefly.
“Unless it wakes Chieftain. Then it good.”
